Taliban behind Times Square plot, says US

Times Square car bomb was the work of a Pakistani Taliban group, rather than "lone wolf" attacker

A New York police bomb squad officer walks away from a suspicious package at Times Square in New York on Friday, just a week after the nearby car bomb attempt. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters Lucas Jackson/REUTERS

Senior White House officials said today they believe last week's Times Square car bomb was the work of a Pakistani Taliban group, rather than a "lone wolf" attacker, after finding evidence of a broader plot behind the botched attack.

A US citizen, Faisal Shahzad, 30, is in custody for the bombing and is said to be providing valuable information. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, told ABC television that a recent visit by Shahzad to Pakistan was no coincidence.

"We've now developed evidence that show the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack," Holder said. "We know that they helped facilitate it. We know that they probably helped finance it. And that he was working at their direction."

A group called Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) claimed responsibility last weekend for the bomb, which failed to detonate after suspicious street vendors raised the alarm about a car abandoned in Manhattan's famous crossroads.

Although the group's claim was initially greeted with scepticism, the TTP was named today by John Brennan, the White House's special adviser on counter-terrorism. "It's looking like the TTP was responsible for this attack – that he [Shahzad] had worked with the TTP over the past number of months," he said.

The disclosure came as missiles fired by an American drone killed at least nine people in Pakistan's tribal belt this morning. Two missiles slammed into a house in North Waziristan, the tribal region where Shahzad claims to have met the Taliban leadership and obtained explosives training.

The US has stepped up pressure on Pakistan to attack militant hideouts in the tribal belt in recent days, particularly North Waziristan. Using unusually belligerent language, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, warned of "very severe consequences" if a successful attack was linked to Pakistan.

In an interview due to be broadcast on CBS today, she said the US "wants more, expects more" from the Pakistani authories. "We've made it very clear that if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences," she said.

The US military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, reportedly delivered a similar message to the Pakistani army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, at a meeting last Friday.

Clinton's threat is understood to mean the US could slow millions of dollars in economic and military aid, rather than mount direct military action in the tribal belt, although some American politicians have urged that, too.

The US is already engaged in its most ferocious campaign on Pakistan soil for decades, through the CIA drone strikes, which currently average about two per week. A senior Pakistani intelligence official said there had been 40 drone attacks this year, compared with 49 in the whole of 2009. Other tallies have counted just over 30 strikes in 2010.

The CIA has received permission to strike a much wider range of suspected militants than before, including those whose identities have not been established, the Los Angeles Times reported last week. Previously, the CIA could only attack individuals on a vetted list of Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.

Today's drone strike destroyed a compound in Datta Khel, a notorious militant stronghold close to the Afghan border. One villager told Reuters that drones circled over the destroyed compound for some time after the attack; the identity of those killed is not known.

"The Americans are very anxious and angry," said Dr Riffat Hussain, an Islamabad-based defence analyst. "Hillary is sounding a word of warning to Pakistan, and this latest drone strike may be related to that."

Separately, Pakistani army helicopters killed 18 militants and destroyed six militant hideouts during operations in Orakzai, another corner of the tribal belt where Taliban fighters recently beheaded three men, according to a government official in the area. The toll could not be independently verified.